Thursday, September 01, 2011

A report issued yesterday by the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (www.ipe.org.cn) says Apple Computer has made a conscious decision to "use polluting companies whilst sacrificing the environment and [surrounding] communities... so as to continue to grab for their own super profits [while turning] itself into a barrier to China’s pollution reduction."

The report, frankly, is downright frightening. The following is an excerpt, by no means complete, that alleges serious issues with Apple's supply chain in China.

Could someone tell the EPA so that they can pursue an investigation... overseas?

In the report titled ‘The Other Side of Apple,’ published January 2Oth, 2011, the coalition of environmental organizations brought to light many serious problems in Apple Inc.’s supply chain in China. After the report was published, Apple went on to issue their own annual CSR report in which they acknowledged, for the first time, that 137 workers had been poisoned by n-hexane while working at a production line for one of their products...

Yet, to this very day, some of the poisoned workers’ very reasonable demands for treatment and compensation have not been fully resolved. The workers have written three letters to Apple, but they have not received a word of reply. Furthermore, Apple remains completely non-responsive about the pollution cases raised by the environmental groups...

On the one hand Apple has been silent about its environmental and social responsibilities, yet at the same time, in order to satisfy the upsurge in market demand, the company continues to expand its supply chain in China..

...Apple Inc.’s policy of not commenting and to bury their heads in the sand when queries are raised by the public does not mean that the problems of pollution and poisoning within the supply chain will automatically vanish. On the contrary, its continuously expanding supply chain signifies that its environmental risks will also simultaneously increase. Faced with a stubbornly evasive Apple Inc., a number of Chinese environmental NGOs decided to dig deeper and to further investigate the environmental problems that exist within Apple’s supply chain. Through five months of research and field investigations we found that the pollution discharge from this enormous industrial empire has been expanding and spreading throughout its supply chain, seriously encroaching on the local communities and their environment.
...

[Meiko Electronics'] wastewater contains the heavy metals nickel and copper, local residents had misgivings about water pollution since the factory was first built... ...we discovered that the relevant departments had pushed Meiko Electronics to discharge treated water into their neighbor, Chenming Paper Factory’s, large discharge outlet, therefore reducing pollution emissions. We learned that the factory had a chlorine accident in April 2008 that led to the poisoning and hospitalization of 18 workers...

...Walking along the side of the drainage channel we were very startled to discover that the whole waterway was flowing with a milky white liquid. We rode in a small fishing boat out into Nantaizi Lake. The water in the lake was an ash grey color with white bubbles accompanying groups of black floating objects... [The lake] is directly linked to the Yangtze River meaning the contaminated water will eventually feed into the Yangtze River...

...After just a few drops of rain landed, steam appeared out of the polluted milky water in the tunnel entrance and was blown over by the wind, bringing with it an acidic odor that made everyone want to cough. “Our generation drinks polluted water but the next generation will be drinking poisoned water” said Wan Zhengyou...

...We found the Chenming Paper Factory discharge outlet and saw a very thick metal pipe discharging torrents of brownish red wastewater into the river. A large amount of white foam was forming on the surface of the river and flowing on towards the Dongfeng sluice gate. After arriving at the Dongfeng sluice gate we saw that the wastewater and white foam were able to flow directly and unhindered straight into the Yangtze. An elderly keeper of the sluice gate told us that at night the wastewater foam discharge was much greater and it often had a stench that was so bad he was unable to sleep... ...the amount of nickel discharged per year could be as much as 0.017 tons, 16.06 times the amount permitted...
...

The company Kaedar Electronics (Kunshan) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Kaedar Electronics) is located in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province. We came to know of Apple’s relationship with this company through a commercial bribery scandal. This company holds a 2006 pollution record in the Pollution Map Database...

...Kaedar Electronics’ main product is the outer casing and interior of notebook computers... According to the residents, [a] “poisonous gas” that is sometimes discharged [from the factory [and] they do not dare open their windows, otherwise they will wake in the middle of the night choking...

...in these ten years, the village’s stream that once had relatively clean water has now turned inky black [and] many people have fallen sick, with a sharp increase in the village’s cancer rates...

...During the investigation, the villagers spontaneously took water from the stream, pouring the water into a plastic bottle. Suffering from gastric cancer, Zhu Guifen, who has already had her stomach removed due to cancer, clutched a plastic bottle; along with more than ten middle-aged villagers they assembled in front of us. At that time, we were astonished by the scene in front of our camera. These ladies, with an average age of 55 suddenly and simultaneously fell to their knees, clutching the bottle of polluted water and pleaded “We beg you, help us! Help us ordinary people!”...

...since 2007, from just the No.8 section of Tongxin Village, the number of people who have suffered from cancer or died from cancer was more than nine, and the total population of the section of the village was less than 60...
...

Case 10 – Foxconn Chengdu: The Blood Stained iPad2

At around 19:00 on May 20th, 2011, there was a large explosion during production in the polishing workshop along the production line of the iPad 2 at Foxconn’s Hongfujin Chengdu factory. The explosion resulted in the death of two workers and injuries to 16 others. Not long after, another of the workers died from their injuries, bringing the total number of dead to three...

...The explosion was initially identified as having been caused by the buildup of aluminum dust inside a ventilation duct that was ignited when an electrical device was turned on... A dust explosion not only causes a huge blast but can also produce toxic gasses... Staff members who worked in the polishing workshop have said that “although we were wearing face-masks, our whole bodies were covered with the dust,” so it was obvious that the workshop’s dust control system had some problems.

...In delving deeper into the causes of the incident people were surprised to discover that this huge factory, made up of eight different factory buildings and covering an area of 250 acres was built in only 76 days... On March 2nd, 2010, Apple’s new product, the iPad 2 was unveiled... for the three months of July, August and September, a total of 4.19 million iPads were sold and Apple have said that if it wasn’t for a lack of supply they could have sold even more... Apple needed to urgently expand production output.

...The cost of Foxconn building their factory at such haste was the injuries to 18 young workers, three of whom are no longer with us, leaving behind broken families and endless sorrow. The fact that this company was able to pass an audit by a team led by the vice president in charge of manufacturing and then win the main global order for Apple’s iPad 2 should lead people to raise legitimate questions about Apple’s auditing process. However, these questions cannot be answered because Apple will neither proactively disclose information nor respond to queries regarding specific suppliers...

* * * * * * * * *

Apple has already made its decision to stand on the wrong side, to use the loopholes in China’s developing environmental management, to use polluting companies whilst sacrificing the environment and the communities at this expense, so as to continue to grab for their own super profits and in the meantime turn itself into a barrier to China’s pollution reduction. Consumers also need to make a choice.

We believe Apple’s consumers cannot accept the poisoning of the environment, the harm to communities and the sacrifice of employee rights in exchange for their fashionable IT products.

Compare and contrast: in America, the EPA is punishing farmers for made-up violations like dust and milk spills. The Labor Department is torturing Boeing for daring to build a factory in a right-to-work state. And various arms of the federal bureaucracy are terrorizing Gibson Guitars for importing wood -- legally -- from foreign countries.

Meanwhile, companies that manufacture overseas -- and/or are in bed with the administration -- appear to have not a care in the world.